Share This Story!

Will Facebook-Oculus purchase advance virtual reality?

Virtual reality in 1993 was a nascent technology with emerging products that let gamers wear a head-mounted display to battle pterodactyls at the Mall of America, allowed analysts to hover over 3D financial graphics, and gave designers the ability to walk through virtual kitchens.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was 9 years old when the Sega VR headset graced the cover of Popular Science. Virtual reality in 1993 was a nascent technology with emerging products that let gamers wear a head-mounted display to battle pterodactyls at the Mall of America, allowed analysts to hover over 3-D financial graphics, and gave designers the ability to walk through virtual kitchens.

Twenty-one years later, Facebook paid more than $2 billion for Oculus VR, a start-up manufacturer of virtual reality technology.

Despite the hype — or because of it — Sega VR never came out to the general public. The overpromise of re-creating a holodeck-like experience a là Star Trek: The Next Generation met the grim reality of beta testers plugging low-res face gear into the grossly underpowered Sega Genesis System. Can you spell L-A-T-E-N-C-Y? That's what happens when you turn your head and the anticipated view takes a second or two to catch up.

Motion sickness, nausea and headaches were not uncommon side effects of "the fun" the longer you wore the gear. As for resolution, some described the experience as akin to clamping empty jelly jars to your eyes and peering out at a blocky, cartoon-like picture.

"The difference between now and 20 years ago is the incredible photo-realistic detail of the games led by the advances in graphics and computer simulation technology," says Paul Marshall, president, Maxus Systems International. Marshall's focus in 1993 was 3-D simulations for Wall Street, but the company has since moved to building decision visualization applications for the military, among other markets.

The most prominent VR pioneer is Jaron Lanier, who in the 1980s left Atari to co-found VPL Research, the first company to offer goggles and gloves. When the news recently broke about Facebook's purchase of Oculus, Lanier says he was inundated with "an insanely large number of requests for comments." One reason is a statement he made to The New Yorker last year following the publication of his book, Who Owns the Future? He told the magazine that social-networking sites devalue friendship.

We asked: By extension, does Facebook, the premier social-networking site, devalue VR?

Lanier released this statement: "In the abstract, I say congrats to the Oculus team, but beyond that what matters is what they actually do. If they don't make a success of this support, that would be a drag. I have seen a lot of cases where big-ticket acquisitions seem to actually slow innovative start-ups down. Hope that doesn't happen in this case. But remember, despite all the publicity, there are a lot of other VR efforts in the world, so this isn't the only game in town. I don't think a failure would curse VR.

"Oculus is charming and reminds me of VPL Research. It feels like a time warp."

A big question is how Facebook will integrate VR technology beyond gaming, but one possibility involves you donning an Oculus headset to watch a movie in a virtual theater along with others. As you face forward, the movie fully occupies your vision, but if you turn your head, friendly avatars might be discovered seated alongside you. Perhaps you'd prefer to switch the mood of the audience from laugh track-friendly to ghetto-edgy.

While some might find the idea of a public theater wrapped around your head bizarre, others see it as a way of injecting some interaction into an otherwise isolating viewing experience or a modicum of ambiance during a dreary commute. (Think mobile.)

Could cyber dating or virtual mixers hosted by Facebook be far behind? Will artificial relationships supplant real ones? Marshall worries, "Japan is probably the leader in immersive gaming and much has been written there on people retreating from the pressures of everyday life into the safety of the ethereal dreamscapes of computer simulations."

When virtual hook-ups are streaming through remote servers, who else is watching, and how is the data used?

Says Lanier, "Whether the combination of Oculus + Facebook will yield more creativity or creepiness will be determined by whether the locus of control stays with individuals or drifts to big remote computers controlled by others."

Significant progress is being made in the world of VR technology — though not necessarily for the benefit or betterment of individual users. What a difference 20 years can make.